Is White Terror creeping back in Taiwan?

During Chen Yunlin’s visit, the violations of human rights in Taiwan have reached the highest level since 1991. I have blogged several times about signs of dictatorship and martial law coming back to Taiwan before. However, when it all really happened, I was too upset to write about it. I have also been extremely busy at work this month. I am worried that the situation in Taiwan is only going to get worse.

Apparently, Taichung County Government is now investigating ALL annual leaves taken by employees (including temps and those on fixed term contracts) between 3rd and 7th November. Head of Human Resources, Chen Shan-geng in the county government claimed that this was requested by councillors who would like to make sure that all employees were in and ready to respond to the County Council for regular meetings. Chen emphasised that he asked the councillors whether information should only be provided on those high level managers/directors but the councillors insisted on looking into everyone’s attendance records. However, some DPP councillors suspected that the government is keeping a record on those who may have taken leaves to protest against Chen Yunlin and Ma’s government during that period.

I am not convinced that the above incident was just a coincidence, as I haven’t heard of any level of governments asking to investigate all annual leaves during a certain period often. I certainly haven’t heard of temps having to answer questions in Council meetings before. Why does it have to be within the period of Chen Yunlin’s visit? Is this an isolated case? For those who think that the White Terror is an overstatement for the current situation, does this incident constitute watching people? If so, and along with everything else going on, is White Terror not creeping back?

Update: Taipei City Councilor, Chien Yuyen, disclosed today that some employees in Taipei City Government have also been questioned as to their whereabouts on 25th October and from 3rd to 7th November 2008. She also got a complaint from a DPP member that he now has to withdraw his party membership because his son is doing his compulsory military service soon and it has been rumoured that the military sector is now checking whether any new intake has family members who are DPP members/supporters.

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Taiwan, also known as Formosa, is NOT part of China. The majority of the population see themselves as Taiwanese, NOT Chinese. Taiwan is a democracy and therefore people there do not wish to be ruled by China, a dictatorship with poor human rights record and about 2,000 missiles aiming at Taiwan.